Electronic Warfare (EW) tactics are employed by electronic attack (EA) aircraft to transmit electromagnetic energy into a threat radar receiver with sufficient power to prevent the threat radar receiver from accurately detecting or tracking a protected entity aircraft (PE). Electronic warfare includes the basic concepts of noise jamming, deception jamming, and barrage jamming. Noise jamming techniques include the deliberate transmission, re-transmission, or reflection of electromagnetic energy to impair the use of enemy electronic devices, equipment, and systems. Deception jamming techniques include transmitting fake return signals that the enemy accepts as genuine. Successful jamming efforts require generating a jamming signal that exceeds the expected target return signal seen by the enemy (threat) receiver and concentrating the radar jamming signal in the direction of the enemy (threat) receiver antenna. Barrage noise jamming floods the threat radar receiver with massive amounts of electronic emissions over a wide range of frequencies simultaneously and significantly degrades the performance and accuracy of low technology threat receivers.
Advanced radar systems and threat emitters have reduced the effectiveness of noise jamming approaches. The electronic attack aircraft have adapted to advanced technology threat radar emitters by tuning the electronic attack jamming frequency to match the frequency of the threat emitter and to follow any frequency hopping or other frequency agile characteristics the threat emitter may employ. Deception jamming requires the electronic attack platform to generate a signal that is similar to the target return signal the threat receiving system expects to receive while modifying the target characteristics such as return signal strength, range, heading, velocity, and/or acceleration. When the threat includes multiple threat emitters employing advanced radar techniques, it is even more difficult to provide protection jamming to defend protected entities. Cockpit display information and aircrew decision aids are used to improve situational awareness for the electronic attack aircrew. Computer-implemented decision aids incorporating cockpit display information provide additional assistance to the aircrew.